Troika
by Spylace
Summary: A soldier, a killer and an alien walk into the bar and save the world. Or alternatively, how Reaper, Sylar and Neytiri end up in the Star Trek universe.
1. Q

**Title: **Troika [1/?]  
**Summary:** A soldier, a killer and an alien walk into the bar and save the world. Or alternatively, how Reaper, Sylar and Neytiri end up in the Star Trek universe.  
**Rating: **PG13  
**Pairing: **None applicable as of this moment. Maybe Spock/McCoy/Uhura or Sylar/Reaper/Neytiri later?  
**Notes: **multifandom crossover with _Avatar (2009)_, _Doom (2005)_ and the TV series _Heroes_. And yes, I keep starting these WIPs but I need to get rid of them somehow. But I swear this is a short one. And thus requires less strategizing and allocation of brain power. Which I will need for other things like brushing my hair or hey, let's not use the pen that keeps exploding in your hands. I'm also debating whether or not to move the contents of my lj here. I'll probably decide against though since I'm notoriously lazy.  
**Disclaimer: **I own none of these fandoms  
**Warnings:** possible polyamory, requires healthy suspension of belief, un-betaed  
**Word count:** 1800+ (for this chapter)

.

Silk-tasseled corn swayed to the obvious sound of displacement as three figures, one alien and two humans appeared in the field. Startled badly, John Grimm slammed his ka-bar into the nearest person's throat and thrust down as easy as stirring a bowl of replicated gruel. He felt the warm sunburst of blood on his hand as he cleaved through flesh and cartilage, a sharp glance at the other man's dark eyes confirming what he already knew.

Gabriel Gray, once known as Sylar, gurgled as John fell into a practiced crouch, turning on the tall blue alien who lashed her tail and hissed at him in warning. He snorted, fist still dripping. "You've got to be shitting me—a Na'vi?"

Neytiri pressed her ears back, bioluminescent markings drawing broad stripes across her cheeks. "How did you..."

John choked when Gabriel returned the favor. His spine snapped audibly, the C7 and the Th1 vertebrae grinding together before they ruptured, shards of calcium-rich ossicles shredding the delicate nerves and membrane. He dropped face down like a puppet cut from its strings, the boots of the man whom he'd killed just moments before kicking him in the side before coming to a rest under his nose. "Now" The pair of boots chided mildly, "Why don't you tell me how you really feel?"

The Na'vi shouted something incomprehensible at them both and Gabriel arched an eyebrow in interest, wiping the blood from his mouth as though one might dust, courtesy of an ability he stole long ago. He had never seen a Na'vi before, only read about them on the anemic reports of the galactic clusterfuck that had been the mission to Pandora.

Up close, the Na'vi was magnificent like something drawn out of post-symbolism art. She bore his scrutiny with a guarded expression, beautiful in all ways dangerous things were. Gabriel licked his lips unconsciously, curiosity rearing its perverse head like a hungered beast. Fortunately for Neytiri, John chose that moment to let out a wet cough, revealing that he was about as dead as Gabriel himself was, hair mussed and sticky but otherwise unharmed. "I've heard of this joke before" He croaked, wiping his knife clean on one knee. "—a soldier, a killer, and an alien walk into a bar..."

"From where I'm standing, pot kettle."

"Yeah well I'm not the scourge of the twenty-first century."

This surprised him. He thought his story lost to the annals of time. Between the Great War and the hundreds of individuals proud to call themselves Augments, rising up to claim what they believed to be their birthright.

Gabriel had made himself scarce during that time. Him and Peter and whoever they managed to find, usually Claire though she couldn't stand him and always took off after a week or two causing her uncle no small amount of worry. He hadn't seen her since Peter died.

"You know me."

John closed his eyes, still on the ground. Perhaps his abilities weren't as instantaneous.

"I'm really hoping that this is a bad acid trip but since I haven't had those since 2039."

Another Augment. Here.

Gabriel stared speculatively. Having his spine broken didn't seem to have done the other man much harm other than the initial theatrics and the general reluctance to move. He didn't recognize him though that wasn't terribly surprising. But the casual remark about his youthful delinquency placed him well after the Eugenics War and Sylar. He was a puzzle. It had been a long time since he'd come across one he couldn't solve.

Satisfied that the two sky-people wouldn't kill each other, Neytiri sniffed the air. "What is this place?"

They looked around, seeing nothing but blue sky and green stalks in all directions. The Na'vi had the distinct advantage of being taller than the towering corn but even she couldn't see anything as she made a slow circle, feeling oddly vulnerable amidst the strange smelling grass which failed to glow right.

Gabriel lifted himself several feet off the ground to the grumbles of—"oh that's just not fair."

"Better question is" He interjected "how did we get here?"

"Very simple. I brought you here."

There was someone else with them in the field, space, room, or whatever now, stamping its feet in impatience. It was a child of an indeterminate gender, if its race had genders, humanoid with raised scales freckling its face and throat like a large caramel apple dipped in peanuts. The being only came up to Gabriel's knees and was comically dwarfed by the Na'vi who squinted at it in disbelief. But somehow it exuded its presence through the air in a noxious ooze, making it seem bigger than it actually was.

"What the hell are you?" John asked with all diplomacy, sparking their first contact.

It raised a finger. "That is none of your business."

Despite being flat on his back, John took out a handgun.

"Wrong answer."

With a wave of its hand, the gun disintegrated in his hands. John was left staring as black sand poured through his fingers in a gentle stream. He sat up, hands reaching towards the top of his spine when the bones popped back into place.

"Times is of the essence." It said genially. "And I require your most excellent services."

Wispy fingers spread like smoke trails, changing the backdrop of into the image of space, complete with newborn stars and spiral-armed galaxies. It was breathtaking. Even John who had run with Corvallen pirates across Romulan space was impressed.

"What is that?" Neytiri turned her head, blinking her luminous yellow eyes as she pointed to the distance, a dissonance in the black fabric of space, a singularity, a shadow with no stars. The being zoomed them close until they were almost on top of it, at the edge of the universe where the space curved and towered up like a great mushroom dome.

"This is the problem you must solve."

John glared. "How? We don't even know what's wrong with it."

The being rocked on the balls of its feet, tickled. "But you knew right away that something was wrong. Your universe is on the verge of collapse. You must stop it."

"Why us?" The Na'vi asked, giving voice to what they had all been thinking. "There must be others more appropriate for this task."

"I don't know." Gabriel shrugs, grinding down on the crack in the universe as though he could somehow rub it out of existence. Gears turned in his head as though jolted by a spare battery. The familiar ticking was back as he gathered information, looking at the problem from all angles. "I've gotten fond of the world these past few centuries."

"Mankind is the key."

"That is awfully presumptuous of you considering all the fuckups we've managed in our short history."

The being continued undeterred, "Jim Kirk must live."

"Jim Kirk" Gabriel ignored the other man's bristling and weighed the name carefully in his mind. "George Kirk's son?"

"Yes"

"The man's a hero." John said flatly. "If anything, he'd need protection from us—no offence ma'am."

The Na'vi's ears flickered at the word. "I am Neytiri."

It earned her a wan smile. "Neytiri then."

"Why do you care if he lives or dies?" Gabriel asked curiously.

"Oh we don't. If we could leave it alone we would. But the Continuum knows what's going to happen and we like the current status quo."

"And what is that?"

"In every universe, Jim Kirk had people he could rely on, friends closer than soul mates." Its leer seemed entirely inappropriate on its childlike face. "But this world is—oh what's that term? Few nails short of a hardware store?"

"Screws" John growled and it nodded gleefully. Neytiri looked lost.

"It is delightful how many ways you've invented to disparage your fellow man. But I digress. This world is an anomaly." _Gee thanks_ John muttered, which was once again ignored. "It is different and we cannot change it." The being frowned, unhappy at admitting its shortcomings. "The _Narada_changed everything."

"The _Narada_—that's Romulan. The fucking Romulans caused the Kelvin Incident?"

"Yes and no." Before John could interrupt, it held up another finger. The man fell silent; his throat bobbing as he realized that he couldn't speak. "A hundred and fifty-four years in the future, Romulans will rediscover their hatred of your world. And they will not be the worst to come."

The being threw up a dying world and a ship full of survivors falling into space.

"In 2387, the Narada will be sent back in time, causing what is known to you as the Kelvin Incident. It caused a ripple effect throughout the known universes. Some negligible, others required aggressive treatment. In yours however, several individual failed to exist before they were born."

Gabriel cleared his throat. "So your solution is to put the fate of this universe in the hands of two killers and an alien?"

"Oh no" It replied, its voice sly. "I am putting the fate of the universe in the hands of the only one who can hear it and the two men who cannot die."

At this, Neytiri looked sharply at her two companions, one who maintained feigned ignorance and the other who gave her a resigned nod.

"You will be rewarded of course." The being said loftily. "Incentives was it? I'm told you respond well to incentives."

The three bristled at the slight. It addressed Neytiri with an imperious smile. "For you my dear, protection for your planet perhaps? I can make sure that Pandora stays out of sight, out of mind." In an instant, it appeared in front of Gabriel, a cheeky grin tugging at its lips as it touched his hand. "And for you Gabriel..."

"I'm fine."

"Are you? When Peter Petrelli died, you burned people for less."

"Don't bother." John drawled, his voice graveled as though words were being scraped out by the skin of his teeth. "You can't do it. You can't meddle can you? Or else you wouldn't have needed us in the first place." He rubbed his throat, grimacing when he tasted blood on the back of his tongue. The being looked almost disappointed at his swift recovery.

"No, but I can tell you where your sister's body is, I can tell you what you are and what you aren't."

"What?"

"Surely you've noticed." It tilted its head in a picture of innocence, cheeks dimpled and long-fingered hands tucked carefully behind its back. But its eyes were swirling a worldly black, eliciting a gasp from Neytiri when they flashed like lightning in the vacuum of space. John reached for his pockets only to find them empty. A frustrated snarl next to him told him that whatever powers Gabriel might have had were gone. "Many were infected with the agent known as C24. Only you lived."

John was cold.

"I was lucky." He said harshly, backing away, the two others at his back.

The being grinned artlessly. "There is no such thing."

Air was being sucked out of their lungs as color bleached from their surroundings, inverse to the eddy of black in its stolen eyes. At last, when the last vestiges of consciousness faded from them Neytiri gasped,

"Who _are _you?"

The thing bowed, terrible and obscene.

"_I am Q_."


	2. Riverside

**Title: **Troika [2/?]  
**Summary:** A soldier, a killer and an alien walk into the bar and save the world. Or alternatively, how Reaper, Sylar and Neytiri end up in the Star Trek universe.  
**Rating: **PG13  
**Pairing: **None applicable as of this moment. Maybe Spock/McCoy/Uhura or Sylar/Reaper/Neytiri later?  
**Notes: **multifandom crossover with Avatar (2009), Doom (2005) and the TV series Heroes.  
**Disclaimer: **I own none of these fandoms  
**Warnings:** possible polyamory, requires healthy suspension of belief, un-betaed  
**Word count:** 2300+

.

When the dust settled, the Klingons came.

At first, they thought it was more sky people come to declare war. Jake Sully had warned them as such, that their victory was vile and would incite more carnage before it was over. But they were ready, Eywa was ready when the first ships touched down on the clearing where the RDA compounds stood empty as though waiting for them.

Night was when the forest came to life, pamtseowll singing to the sleeping palulukan and the packs of nantang that slithered through the leaves. The ikranay and talioang amassed beneath the luminescent canopies while the soft-bodied jelly and payioang boiled the seas.

They thought they were ready.

Unlike the sky people, the Klingons did not care for diplomacy, did not wear false smiles as they shook fistfuls of coins and colorful glass at them for the rights to the mines. Though approximately half their size, the Klingon were fierce. They were a race of butchers.

When the glowing stalks of Loreyu lit their alien faces, Jake told them to run.

There was no warning. When Neytiri fell, she thought she had simply gone to sleep beside her mate and woke unsettled as she did sometimes when Eywa had not finished sharing her dreams. She stared in a daze as the air exploded around her into a firework of reds and golds, deep, violent colors that seared the back of her eyelids black.

Sylwanin, her daughter, shrilled frightened and angry into her ears as she curled around her daughter, waiting for Jake, the Klingons, waiting simply for the world to end.

As though Eywa had heard her prayers, the angtsìk came charging, brave and powerful beasts impervious to pain until they suddenly weren't. But their heavy bodies hid them from their invaders' pitiless eyes and Neytiri ran even as the fat bubbled off the meat of her thighs and shrapnel burst into her left eye. She ignored the pain, until the noise faded and the smell of burnt hair and skin died behind her ashen footsteps. At night, when the last of the survivors knelt at the root of the soul tree, bleeding and weeping silently to themselves, Eywa herself seemed to mourn, her white branches swaying as though shedding tears.

Neytiri screamed and fought the healers, their cool hands pulling at her arms and legs, stitching open wounds and plugging her injured eye with a cork of leaves.

Sylwanin, in another's arms, whimpered at her mother's distress, her dark face lighting up briefly as she tried to nurse. The healer shook her head and offered her a finger to suck on as she parted the scraps of skin, pointing out where her knees fell crooked, legs failing to kick when tickling the toes. The other female couldn't tell her whether she had fallen somewhere or if Neytiri had accidentally crushed her during the attack.

Her daughter would never walk again. Jake Sully never returned.

.

Weeks crawled by but even Klingons seemed to flag in their assault. For all their greed, they could not reap the land fast enough to guarantee swift demise. The atmosphere was too unstable for the weapons that had cut wide swaths through the Omaticaya in their initial attack. More often than not, hunting parties were sent to kill the stragglers and burn whatever was left. Eywa no longer lit up at night and no syaksyuk could be heard through the branches, calling for mates.

_Why us?—_she silently begged the all-mother and felt ashamed at her thoughts, a Tsahìk who wished harm upon others.

They hid, constantly on the move, warning the far-flung clans of Eywa of the Klingon's arrival. They took to the skies, on ikran that fell like drops of rain upon the earth, to the seas that burned when touched, its vibrancy unnatural to their wounded eyes.

Sylwanin grew up knowing terror and little else. Sometimes, Neytiri found herself watching her daughter clutch at sunlight and saw her fade like the splendor of their once-home. In those moments, she felt Jake Sully pressed to her back, as much a part of Eywa as he was hers, reminding her that all was not lost, that strategy and planning were the integral assets of a fierce hunter, of a leader.

But she was neither now that she was the hunted, barely holding together a brigand of shell-shocked Na'vi waiting for their time to die. All she had left were memories and a daughter who seemed determined to suck them out from her sore breasts.

In desperation, she made Ninat the singer swear to the skies, to the seas, to Eywa who was silent, that no matter what happened she would look after her little one and guard her with her life.

The Klingons followed them to the edge of the world where the oceans swelled and spat bright electricity. Neytiri stayed behind. She was dead when the Q found her.

.

Neytiri woke as weak and disoriented as a yerik caught in a nantang's trap.

She had been dead, of that she was certain. But she stood among the unripe corn in a grove that saw no ending, bathed in a warm yellow light that was not of her sun.

Memories trickled down tentatively into her tired thoughts. The Q, the universe's Eywa, had stepped in when the Klingon tired of his plaything, thrusting his dagger deep until it no longer hurt. He took her away, away from family, home, from Eywa and placed her among between two tawtute males in rut.

She had been chosen to save the universe when she could not even guard her home tree. Her eyes watered and her hand came up unconsciously, pressing at the corners until they fluttered shut.

Her eyes grew wet and her hand came up unconsciously, pressing at the corners until her eyes fluttered closed. When she reopened them, she realized what was wrong.

The others found her on her knees, prostate before the unfeeling corn, rocking back and forth with her arms wrapped around her ribs, twigs and bramble caught in her silky hair.

Immediately, one of the sky people drew her into a hug, a familiar, practiced motion that belied his past as something more than a common thug. He was familiar to her and smelled like soldiers with guns, which repulsed her at first, full of pepper and gunpowder and something inexorably alien that she believed that him to be invincible. Jake had called himself a 'jarhead' once, Jake Sully of the Jarhead clan.

In spite of her grief, she looked at him, the nakedness of his skin to the contours of his cheeks. The tawtute soldiers had always looked the same to her untrained eyes, cropped hair denouncing their connection to Eywa. But this one held himself like a protector, a mother, a palulukan with a young cub, gruffly smoothing his palms down her back and telling her that she would be fine, that she would be okay.

"I... I am a _tawtute_." The word came out like an insult though she did not mean it. Neykiri keened, her voice coarse to her ears, lacking the thrilling inflections of her own tongue. "I do not understand."

"Neytiri, sweetheart, listen." The soldier said gently, a hint of desperation coloring his voice as he held her. "The mission to Pandora used avatars. Maybe you remember, humans used to walk around as one of you. Maybe the Q did something, maybe your body's out there somewhere and what you're wearing is..."

"_Uniltìrantokx_" she coughed.

"Whatever you just said." John said agreeably, wiping her tears.

Dreamwalker bodies were wrong. She could never imagine leaving Eywa willingly, to cut that bond between them as tangible as any limb. But she had wondered, as they shrouded Jake Sully's tawtute body in lenay'ga hide, what it might feel like to live in such a body, small and pink, too fragile to be any good in the jungles where they lived.

"How can you stand it?" She whispered, curling him into a little as though seeking shelter from the storm.

"'Scuse me?"

"You are all so very small." Neytiri looked up at him, at the one he called _killer_, past the line of corn where the sun blazed overhead. The tawtute sky was blue but a different quality of blue than Eywa's veil. Perhaps it was her human eyes, weak and watery with no way to stop them other than the soldier's damp sleeves.

She wondered if they had healers here, ones who would see patients outside their own clan. When the sky people first came, they offered medicine, first aid to those who needed it.

Her father had refused, Eywa provided for her own.

She wondered if it could have made a difference for her beloved Sylwanin, for her left eye which had to be scraped out like meat from the shells discarded on the beach. "I never realized..."

They had such expressive faces, even without the lights and stripes. The killer snorted, "Speak for yourself."

The soldier rolled his eyes, green shot with copper like a precious stone. "Is this really the time?"

"I'm just saying. We're not that small."

"Look asshole, cut her some slack. It's not every day you end up with a hatchet job on your entire body."

The killer curled his lips. "...Not the word I would have chosen."

"Sad day when _I_'m the voice of intergalactic sensitivity." The soldier muttered. "Where the fu—_dge_ are we anyway?"

The killer looked at the soldier for a moment as though he had something else to say.

"You can't tell? The infinite fields of corn wasn't enough of a clue?"

"Enlighten me; I've been off planet since the turn of the century. For all I know we still run around in those floating deathtraps you call hover cars."

"Way to show your patriotism you Luddite. Those flying deathtraps saved the economy back in the roaring 90s."

"You have to specify." The soldier deadpanned. "I don't think I was alive back then."

The killer shrugged. "Welcome to Iowa, circa 2233."

"What. You're not sure?"

The killer held up an arm feathered with strips of bright, excruciating neon colors that made her eyes bleed. The one on the palm said '_go west :)_'. He started to walk.

"Insufferable bastard." The soldier hissed.

She couldn't help herself. Neytiri laughed.

.

Even with directions, it took over three hours before a probe found them, alerted the authorities, guided them back to civilization and landed them in front of a local deputy who scrutinized the strange threesome, his eyebrows inclining sharply as he finished scrolling through his PADD.

"You're lucky." He said finally. "Sometimes the bastards never make it out of the fields alive."

Neytiri sat quietly as the soldier grunted in answer, his knuckles white across his knees as he emptied his pockets of ordnances that had everyone in the room shooting him wary glares.

"Training exercise went wrong." He answered tersely when pressed.

"And you met up with these two how...?"

"I assume it was a transporter accident." The killer interjected smoothly, earning a curt nod from the soldier.

"Is that right Mr...?"

"Gabriel Petrelli."

The deputy nodded in acceptance though the expression on the killer's face was anything but friendly. She wasn't sure how she knew; only she had seen ikranay baring their teeth in the same way after bloodying a kill.

The soldier cleared his throat.

"If y'all don't mind, we'd like to go now."

"Of course" The deputy said with an annoyed look. "Sign here please."

"Tourists" Someone muttered from the back as Gabriel scratched out a signature.

His fingers never touched the PADD.

.

Jim Kirk was an adorable child, chubby with the kind of cheeks that begged to be squeezed. Neytiri was fascinated by his appearance, golden and flushed rosy red when he cried, denied his right to chew on his admirer's hair. She would have let him had Gabriel not pulled her back, the boy's guardian stammering apologies at his behavior.

The boy squinted up at her, squeezing fat tears from his extraordinary blue eyes. They were mesmerizing in color, almost like the stripes across the inner wrist or behind the knees where the sun was less likely to touch.

He reminded her of Sylwanin in his helplessness, the little boy chosen to mend the crack in their universe.

_Would he be enough?_ She asked herself then scolded herself for doubting. The Q had chosen her as his herald. If she succeeded, her people would never have to worry about the likes of Klingons or tawtute's return. She may even see her daughter again.

Naturally, there was an opposing force to her newfound resolution. The soldier had vibrated with tension all throughout the encounter. Ensconced in the relative safety of an abandoned farmhouse, he exploded with the righteous fury of a pa'li stallion in a rut.

"We can't stay here! He's a wanted _felon_—"

"Not since 2212."

The soldier, waved at himself. "—I'm their pet science project—"

"So you'll know not to get caught." Gabriel said reasonably, crossing his arms.

The soldier pointed at her. "And _her_—! Well she can stay I guess, as far as I know she's human." He frowned at her as though he could somehow see the inner workings of her body with the blink of an eye. "God knows what might have happened if that bastard dropped her here looking like herself."

"You're not curious? Not even a little?" Gabriel asked him, leaning against a bench and grimacing when it collapsed.

"I'm still not convinced that I haven't taken a slug to the head or hallucinated the entire thing."

"And if it's true what the 'Q' said?"

"Then I'll just have to live with that." The soldier answered resigned, slightly hunched over as though he'd said it one too many times.

"Nobody is leaving." Unnoticed, Neytiri seized them both with strength that would have broken a lesser man's bones. As it was Gabriel yelped as his wrists popped, the metacarpus crushed inside her grip. The soldier did not fare any better, the veins in his neck standing out in stark contrast as he stared at her in equal amounts of horror and admiration.

"We are all staying." She said serenely and that was final.


	3. Jim

**Title: **Troika [3/?]  
**Summary:** A soldier, a killer and an alien walk into the bar and save the world. Or alternatively, how Reaper, Sylar and Neytiri end up in the Star Trek universe.  
**Rating: **PG13  
**Pairing: **None applicable as of this moment. Maybe Spock/McCoy/Uhura or Sylar/Reaper/Neytiri later?  
**Notes: **multifandom crossover with Avatar (2009), Doom (2005) and the TV series Heroes.  
**Disclaimer: **I own none of these fandoms  
**Warnings:** possible polyamory, requires healthy suspension of belief, un-betaed  
**Word count:** 2300+

.

Gabriel liked lists.

They were ordered and neat.

In the unlikely event he forgot something even if he could with his enhanced memories, lists allowed him to keep track of trivial pursuits like the number of times the soldier attempted escape since taking up residence in their loft above the empty farmhouse. When morning came, they discovered that it was a historical homestead, besieged by kids of all ages out on fieldtrips that was a breath of nostalgia on its own. Neytiri had watched with rapt attention as they explored the dusty chasms like boundaries of space. Meanwhile, he had a terrific time with a rib out of alignment trying to restrain John without causing undue noise.

It wouldn't have mattered to him what John wanted. Frankly, he would have let him go. He recognized the panic-stricken instinct to run. There was no kindness in keeping him except the 'Q' implicitly stated the necessity of all three being together. In his defense, he was bored and saving the universe sounded much more interesting than the prospect of another thirty something years alone, fighting off children who had taken up their grandparents' cause to kill Sylar.

He wondered how Clair was doing.

The night after they settled in, Neytiri had caught the soldier sneaking out and after a firm taking to, set him loose to grumble and kick the floorboards under her watchful eyes. He tried again in the morning, among the crowd that 'ooh'ed and 'ah'ed at the primitive ways the people of the twenty-first century lived. Neytiri had slammed him against the wall in front of stunningly preserved octogenarians and the security threw them both out until she could drag him back to their space under the shillings.

The next time had been Gabriel. He'd broken the other man's leg in three places without batting an eye. Taken by surprise, John initially stifled a groan then let loose a blood-curdling scream, enough to scare the local wildlife and whatever unfortunate soul wandering the cornfields late at night.

Curiously, it seemed that John had kept all his nerve endings along with regeneration. His bones knitted slowly as they stripped him, fast in comparison to normal humans but none of them were normal in that regard. When it looked like Neytiri would cry from seeing the soldier piece his tibia back together, Gabriel graciously donated some of his immortal blood.

It failed spectacularly.

"Who's allergic to blood?" Gabriel wondered out loud as John's leg swelled up twice its usual size.

"What the hell's wrong with you?! You are not normal! You don't just give blood to someone! That's unsanitary! What if our blood types don't match?! Good god, get the fuck away from me or I swear I'll cut you."

Good thing they were somewhere safe.

Itinerary number one: _recruiting John Doe _wasn't going well.

He was tempted to slice the other man's head open and delve out his secrets. Failing that, perhaps take his place in the great fabric of destiny. But Neytiri crossed her arms and said no when he brought it up, disbelief etched across every inch of her face.

Neytiri was exactly his type—small, feisty, the female Na'vi translated well into her human body, a dusky-skinned goddess even in overalls. Red suited her though the same couldn't be said for John's legs. Considering the golden tan on his face and forearms, the wealth of freckles framing his cheeks, his calves were remarkably pale, pierced by jagged bone which erupted like small mountain ranges down the distended skin. John snapped when he tried to help. He held his hands up, mock-pouting at the blatant mistrust.

"This is good." Neytiri observed. When the two men shot her identical looks of consternation, she shrugged, "You will not try to escape now."

"No, this is not a good thing." The soldier gritted out as he bound his legs. He had nice hands. Gabriel noticed. "This is the opposite good. This is a bad, very bad. People die when I decide to hang around."

She frowned. "I live."

"I said people." John snarled and her face fell. "Shit, sorry, that was uncalled for. But you can't really believe that I can pull this off. You need a doctor!"

"You are a doctor." Gabriel pointed out reasonably.

John rolled his eyes. "A real one! One that has experience in xenobiology and alien pathology if they're going to serve on a ship. I'm just a field medic. I know enough to keep myself alive and believe me, that's no hard work."

"The men of Jarhead clan must be powerful." Neytiri mused as she squatted down. "Are they all gifted like you?"

"No" The soldier laughed, a honeyed gravel sound at the back of his throat. "I'm one of a kind."

Neytiri patiently mopped his knee with her sleeve, the hem growing dark from the blood.

"When the world ends."

"If"

"When" She said firmly, her eyes bright. "Do you not wish to tell your children you had the courage to stay?"

.

The second number on his list was identification. By twenty-third century, even hicks living in the backwoods of Alaska had some sort of proof they were human beings if not a legal citizen of United Earth. They had nothing. The human component was easy enough. Gabriel had enough money stashed away in bank accounts all over the globe to fund their operation. Neytiri predictably had nothing and all John could contribute was incongruous methods to funnel money from anonymous donors.

"What?" He said defensively, rubbing his tender bones through scars that would never completely fade. "Dead men don't write paychecks."

"What are these paychecks?"

"Never mind."

John received his belated birth certificate and they went out for a night of hard drinking. Neytiri, uncertain in her human body, was offered a plenitude of drinks from interested parties. He and John, still very stiff and limping, did their best to keep her between them and as the night progressed, the empty glasses stacking up on their tables like a tower of cards, they realized two important things. One, Neytiri did not have the tenth the resistance the two immortal men did and two, she still had the strength of her Na'vi body.

"It's alright." John yelled as he laid a man down in the recovery position. "I'm a doctor."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "Is that his _arm_?"

"That's his arm."

Neytiri swayed, bracing the counter. She hiccupped. "I did not mean to..."

She of course would be born later down the road as Nyota Uhura but Spock was a Vulcan-human hybrid, the likes of which only observed a handful of times since the initial contact. The original Spock apparently failed to attach himself to his mother's womb, the zygote washed out the monthlies despite genetic engineering and the finest Vulcan minds at work. Upon hacking into their files, John frowned at the readouts.

They were beginning to learn that it was his default expression.

"Well?"

John flicked the screen and looked around to see if anyone was listening. Neytiri was sitting a few chairs down, receiving a crash course on life in the twenty-third century. She had already gathered a number of weird looks whenever she spat out a Na'vi invective, unintelligible, but unmistakable in tone and meaning. The librarian was glaring daggers at the back of her head, grinding wooden pencils into little nubs that made the kids cry. And there was only so many times Gabriel could push a book off a shelf to redirect her attention.

"If they were smart, they'd stop. The toxicity of the fetus' blood would kill the mother before it was carried to term. In all previous cases, it was a Vulcan mother and a human father."

He turned the monitor towards himself.

"Let me see that."

"And where did you get your medical degree Mr. Spock?" John snarked, grimacing when he pushed down on one knee.

"The same place you did." He replied smoothly. "I was particularly fond of fruit loops."

"No shit." John muttered. "Anyway you can somehow make yourself their son?"

"I could suggest it to them."

"Can you do it in a way that would not fail on a planet full of telepaths?"

Gabriel grimaced.

"No."

It would have been easier to declare himself an orphan but children were cherished on Vulcan and it was unlikely that anyone could accidently conceive a Vulcan-human hybrid without stringent support from the genetics department.

"You can always pass yourself off as a pet science project." John groused "God knows it's close enough to be the truth."

"You're not being very helpful."

"Does it have to be Vulcan? You could be a Romulan. You still get to be a green-blooded hobgoblin."

"I'd rather stick to the plan if you don't mind, thank you."

"Some plan." John snorted, taking out a flask.

Gabriel shot him a disappointed look.

"What?" He barked. "I'm surrounded by crazy people convinced that they're going to save the universe."

"This is a library."

"Really, I couldn't tell. Think Nyota knows she's at a library?"

His lips thinned.

The librarian lost all patience after that.

.

The third was Neytiri. Without her blue skin and yellow eyes, they'd forgotten one critical fact that she wasn't human. Neytiri had no idea how to function in a human society. Her eyes bulged whenever she saw people crossing the streets.

"There are so many of you." She said out loud in childish wonder, smudging thumbprints wherever she went.

It was a good thing they were in Riverside, Iowa rather than a major city where they could have all gotten lost in the cacophony of sounds. Gabriel was used to blending in but he doubted that John, after so many years soldiering in space, knew subtlety if it punched him in the face. Neytiri was only beginning to grasp the nuance of personal space and he reaped the benefits in the only way he could, arms full of shopping bags sprawled out on a bench.

"Now there's a sight." John slurred, looking overwhelmed at the bright colors and the flamboyant shirt he was wearing.

Gabriel jabbed him in the side.

"You're not that old. Just say she's hot."

"My mother taught me manners."

"I am glad somebody did." Neytiri snorted, piling shoe boxes in his lap. He glowered at her, annoyed and threatening to make a birdbath from her skull. She simply glared back, daring him to try. "Your females truly participate in this grueling practice of shopping? I would relive my capture of Seze a dozen times over."

"Sometimes men do it too."

The jab was directed at him. He was wearing a skin, pretty, blonde and baby-faced. It was one of his favorites. He blanched when Neytiri made a show of dangling a sheer thong in front of his face. A pock-faced teenager whistled as he walked by. "The female at the counter assured me that you would be able to help." She demanded. "Now help."

.

Four was himself.

They fought, of course they fought. Especially him and John, they were fundamentally two sides of the same coin. Gabriel had been born with his abilities, John acquired them later in life like an x-men. Neither could die unless disintegrated down to bare molecules or exposed to space which none of them were willing to test. John suspected that Gabriel was keeping secrets and Gabriel knew John had a few of his own. Neytiri, who communed with her adopted planet, got wise to their act and threw him out the window when he'd gotten too bitchy one night after catching John lingering in the doorway as though he might bolt.

They blew steam by beating the shit out of each other, both pulling punches on Neytiri out of misbegotten chivalry before realizing that as a woman imbued with the strength of a Na'vi warrior, she could put them on their backs without breaking her sweat. And as they were always practicing a safe, non-lethal way to spar, they got used to kissing dirt fast.

They took up residence in a three story apartment nobody wanted. Tucked away near the highway where the building rocked to its foundations whenever a truck rumbled by. The first few days were trying for Neytiri who had never gotten over her invasion of planet. Neither had the heart to tell her that if she indeed was the woman who married Jake Sully, her home was long gone, her family probably all dead.

One night, she found him lounging under the starlight with a black eye and a swollen upper lip, slow to clear because he kept pinching the blood flow. She looked at him questioningly, unmoving when he leaned against her and took a breath of her sticky skin.

"I wasn't always like this." He told her. He could hear John moving in the apartment. His legs must have been bothering him again. "I took this ability from a girl." And his hair bleached to a half-hearted yellow that looked like a bad dye job under piss-poor lighting. "For people like me, it's good to feel the pain."

She made a sound as though she disagreed but said nothing as they watched the moon rise.

.

It was only natural that they fell into bed together, three individuals among trillions who knew that their universe was doomed. Year one and the initial tension gave way to a dangerous thrum of energy where they circled each other like tigers vying for a kill. In reality, they were fooling themselves. Neytiri was the glue that held them together. It was she who brought John back whenever he thought to run, she whom he turned for comfort though he would deny it to his unlikely grave. She was the only one with enough patience to babysit two grown men who never grew up. Somehow, Q had known that.

If a body was a temple, Gabriel thought Neytiri might be a revelation.

He might have been a killer, an augment, insane and irredeemable like John said but even he knew to take solace in the small things like the pink curve of her smile and the slide of her legs as she grumpily clambered in between them.

Sometimes they had nightmares and he worried about hurting her. They broke the bed, broke each other and he was always astounded when it happened, when they—usually John—failed to heal instantaneously like he did. It felt a little like guilt, a broken bone to match the snapping sound.

Neytiri deferred to Na'vi insults whenever she could. For a bunch of hunter-gatherers, they were surprisingly creative. He still had no idea what 'fornicate like a yerik' meant though he knew it was nothing good. They had succeeded in beating the crap out of each other that time, his body in an overdrive because it couldn't decide what to fix first while the cut above John's forehead stuck seamlessly. He was pleased to note that the other man walked bowlegged for days after, almost as though he'd been given a good dicking.

"In my society," Neytiri said scornfully as they sat down for a dinner of Chinese takeout. "We tame the ikran or ask Eywa for guidance. We do not believe in harming our allies."

Neytiri did not understand. It could have been that she was too different, Na'vi beneath her human skin, too distracted by new sounds and sensations despite her bereft body. Or maybe it was that he and John were too different, different in everything but their skins.

In a way, they started fucking much earlier than they thought they had. But not in bed, never in bed, not in the sanctity of their private nightmares.

Things were okay until Jim Kirk gained mobility.

They took up strategic positions around Riverside. Despite John's dire predictions or maybe even because of them—the Q did seem to like pulling on the other man's pigtails—they had not been caught, or even questioned, merely accepted as another series of young men and women looking for work around the docks. John eventually got a job in the same police department that processed them when they first came to Iowa.

"I'm a marine," The other man grumbled on the first day of work. "Not a fucking mall cop."

"Language" He said sweetly.

John began to swear at him in Romulan.

Structure seemed to do wonders for the soldier though Gabriel never understood the attraction, the only constant in his life the ticking clock inside his head. Once she finished integrating herself as much as she could in the human culture, Neytiri too took up employment, as a librarian of the local elementary school where she studied languages in her part time and entertained the Kirks when school let out.

"He needs to understand the magnitude of what he is to do." She explained when John and Gabriel caught her stacking piles of books into the young boy's arms. "Even those of us who dare to challenge the great might of Turuk are forewarned."

John shrugged. "It might not be bad to start teaching him a few things."

The only problem was the uncle. Winona Kirk had taken off shortly after Jim was weaned, her tits barely dry before she slid into her Fleet-issue uniform. If he hadn't known any better, he would have thought the man another augment, albeit one with passive abilities like enhanced hearing or acidic blood. Gabriel didn't like the man, all bluster and noisy like John but at the same time, not like him, weak and easily frightened when the twice-promoted cop loomed like the wraith he was supposedly named after. But John reported no blood, no excessive abuse and the two boys were defiant and unruly more than anything so he deferred to Neytiri knowing that Jim alone could drive a saint to drink.

During his time as a cop, John alone saved the boy half a dozen times from mortal peril, most famously the time he'd driven his father's car off a cliff, barely managing to jump off before he went with it. The soldier hadn't stopped shaking even after they slid into bed where Neytiri was waiting, warm and enticing like a lover.

He didn't remember his childhood being this bad, even when his mother told him that all he was ever meant to be was a clockmaker.

John shot him a sideways look, sipping alcohol like it was water.

"It's alright old man; it was bound to happen someday."

"Fuck off."

But it was Gabriel who hit upon the boy's interests. They chattered away for hours in the garage as he fixed things for an exorbitant fee. There weren't many repair shops for clocks and knickknacks out in Riverside. Too many were used to fixing cars, hovercrafts, and building giant ships to consider the delicate project of reviving precious heirlooms under the glass.

Jim had wandered by one day, kicked out by his uncle which happened more and more now that his brother Sam was gone. Gabriel had graciously waved him in as long as he did not make a sound. "I used to be a watchmaker." He offered, handing him a glass of soda in the same breath.

"Whatcha doin'?"

Jim asked, poking his head around the corner to see that there were no customers at hand.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" He asked in Claire's voice, raising an eyebrow to emphasize the time. The boy shrugged smally, his narrow shoulders lifting and falling like the pendulum on a clock. It was a good thing they had the three stories all to themselves. In the future when they met again, Gabriel could look at the boy straight in the eye and feign ignorance.

John, with his helmet welded permanently to his head, never visited shop during daylight hours. Neytiri was attempting to make herself scarce, hoping that the vestiges of time would make the memory fade long enough to admit a freshly-minted lieutenant in charge of communications.

"Hey Elle?"

"Yeah Jim?" He asked distractedly, putting the tiny gears into place. "Do you need a lift?"

"I came to say goodbye."

He looked up.

A sad smile tugging at his lips, the boy said "I'm going to Tarsus."


	4. Tarsus IV pt1

**Title: **Troika [4/?]  
**Summary: **A soldier, a killer and an alien walk into the bar and save the world. Or alternatively, how Reaper, Sylar and Neytiri end up in the Star Trek universe.  
**Rating:** PG13  
**Pairing:** pre-Spock/McCoy/Uhura or Sylar/Reaper/Neytiri  
**Notes: **multifandom crossover with Avatar (2009), Doom (2005) and the TV series Heroes.  
**Disclaimer: **I own none of these fandoms  
**Warnings: **un-betaed, polyamory, requires suspension of belief.  
**Word count: **2800+

* * *

.

* * *

John decided that Kirk was the only person masochistic enough to voluntarily spend his time cooling his heels at a police station. On a Saturday no less.

Sitting on the opposite side of him, John filed his report and set them aside.

"Kirk, do you not have things to do other than harass honest, working citizens?"

"Do you ever take a day off?" Kirk asked, blinking owlishly. The kid must have emptied the coffee machine again. He had the far-off gaze of a man who'd seen things that should have never been seen. Ever.

"Been goin' steady for nearly ten years now." He said gruffly. "Hate to ruin a good thing."

"Right so I was thinking..."

"Don't hurt yourself."

"Hah, no really, you could charge people fifteen credits..."

"Only fifteen?"

"Anyway," Kirk interrupted. "Since it's my last day in Riverside, how about you show me what you've been hiding under there?"

The kid reached out and tapped obnoxiously across his visor. He batted the offending hand away.

"It's a face." He deadpanned "I know it's surprising and I was going to tell you but," He rolled his shoulder and with a fluid shrug, scored a three pointer in the trash using the wadded up paper he kept on his desk just for that purpose. Madill flashed him a scandalized glare before resuming his study of the good book. It was a slow day. "It never came up I guess."

Kirk scowled under the fringe of straw-yellow hair.

"Come on, I swear I won't tell the other kids or anything. Don't I deserve to save my savior's face at least once?"

"Kid" Sakimoto swore from where she was furiously tapping out a lovelorn apology to her girlfriend in Idaho. "You deserve a lot of things." At the same time, John intoned solemnly "But honey, I want you to respect me for more than my body."

Kirk blanched and flushed, the tips of his ears glowing like Christmas lights.

John took pity on him.

"Look kid, why do you got to know so bad? You're gonna be back here someday and believe me, I ain't goin' nowhere."

Leckie, his partner, shot him an arch look. The sheriff had already made the announcement that he was being promoted out of state, something about exemplary services and track record, a couple of pulled strings thanks to Sylar's voice acting.

Kirk shrugged, seemingly disheartened.

Even Sakimoto looked up momentarily from her romantic overtures, her expression absolutely murderous at the possible sight of another relationship gone down the toilet. He was going to break her PADD in half. Whoever had sent her the boxed set of _Twilight_ was going to wish dead.

John glowered back at her, his efforts voided by the bullet proof glass surrounding his eyes. He had taken to wearing the police-issue helmet whenever Kirk dropped by. He claimed that it was so the idiot fool wouldn't recognize him on the streets on the rare occasions he did take a day off. It just wasn't the whole truth.

Kirk let out a great sigh and set a battered-looking camera on top of his desk. "I thought it'd be nice," he wheedled, milking the lingering impressions of baby fat and adolescent innocence for all his worth. "I already got Claire from the autoshop and Mrs. Sands, my counselor and..."

From somewhere behind him, Leckie let out a sympathetic honk.

John groaned.

.

"Huh"

"What?" He snapped, feeling oddly vulnerable without the protective gear around his head. Jesus H. Christ, his long-dead superiors would be spinning in their graves if they could hear him now.

"I thought you'd be older."

"And I thought you'd be more appreciative. You make me go through all this," he swept an arm out towards the empty diner and the table full of dirty dishes and greasy napkins. "And this is the thanks I get?"

The fourteen-year-old looked as though someone had told him Santa wasn't real.

"All this time I thought you were some crotchety old man."

"Gee, thanks."

Kirk slurped his milkshake and pawed his backpack before producing a ring from the side pocket.

"Here"

He said unceremoniously, pushing it forward.

John frowned.

"I don't think I'm ready for this level of commitment."

The blond huffed under his breath.

"Dude, I could do so much better."

"No you could not." John corrected, wishing for something stronger than tepid coffee.

"Anyway, I'm not giving it to you. It's just for safekeeping, you know, until I get back 'cause otherwise, Frank's probably going to pawn it off."

"Why not make an honest woman out of Claire or you know, take it with you?" John asked idly, watching the sunlight play across the platinum band. There were letters etched across top and a familiar sigil scratched off by determined hands.

"Claire? Nah, she's cool. Plus, she's already got somebody."

"Who?" John asked, momentarily concerned that Sylar was cheating on him and Neytiri before slapping the idea down as stupid.

He should be so lucky.

Kirk scrunched up his face.

"I don't know. I saw her with a girl at the autoshop and anyway, Frank..."

John made an unhappy face, pushing his scrambled eggs and whatever-crap-on-top aside.

"You tell me if he's making trouble you hear?"

"'m not eight Coop." Kirk protested. "I can take care of myself fine."

John eyed his syrup-smeared face.

"I can see that."

"I can always throw it down the ravine." Kirk hedged.

John scowled.

"You'll do no such thing. Take one step and I'll beat the tar out of you, make no bones about it."

"You say the weirdest thing Bones."

"Bones" John repeated flatly.

"Booooones" The kid echoed cheerfully. "So you'll keep it?"

"Just for a little while." He sighed, picking up the ring between his two fingers. It was Starfleet issue, the class of 2230. George Kirk's ring, if he wasn't mistaken. Kirk got up, a straw hanging from the corner of his mouth as he produced a wallet, creased and worn like weather-beaten skin. John waved him off. "It's your last day." He reminded recriminatingly. "My treat."

Kirk beamed.

As he turned to leave, John added in a low voice,

"Good luck kid."

.

For their stay on Tarsus IV, Sylar wore a corporate shark, tanned with the kind of dark eyes you'd want to drown in, his teeth filed to an all-American smile. It was perhaps his movie star good looks rather than Harry Ballard's murky status as a disgruntled, possibly corrupt government contractor that landed them in Governor Kodos' mansion night after nights.

Both men, sick of each other's cooking experiments were only glad to accept the invitations. And while Sylar made small talk and dazzled his audience, John began making his own plans regarding their future.

He found Neytiri out on the terrace with a flute of champagne in one hand. Since the years of barcrawling in what he privately dubbed as the 'terrible twenties', the ex-Na'vi had learned the virtues of moderation by implementing it every now and then. Hence the dark look on her face as she sipped her drink like a blushing maid.

Neytiri looked gorgeous in her carmine dress, her hourglass figure accentuated by the scarlet folds. The back of her dress dipped sharply and cradled her lower back with chiffon swaths, tied artfully down one hip like the trailing tail of a bird of paradise.

"Red looks good on you." He complimented as they watched the night's entertainment, a twelve-member choir from the new high school.

"Thank you." She replied, not even throwing a glance his way. "You shouldn't be here."

"Why not?"

Neytiri's lips turned upwards in delight. "I've been told under no circumstances to associate with your 'kind'. Instead, I should be placing my prospects on Mr. Grey over there whom I've been told has lovely, lovely eyes and fantastic taste in dress."

This last comment was pointed towards his wrinkled suit, something he'd dredged up from the closet the last time he had to find work. Really long time ago.

"Fucking fairy" He sneered without heat. "Takes him even longer than you to get him goin' in the mornings."

His companion let out a titillating laughter and he said in half-awe and half-disgust. "They're making a proper lady out of you already aren't they? Your clothing habits are going to break our bank accounts."

"It was a gift."

"From whom?"

"Kodos," She rolled her eyes at his visible reaction. "Oh don't look at me like that, I know what I'm doing."

"But do I?" He muttered as Kodos and his wife approached, genially greeting the newest members of Tarsus IV.

Something broiled uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach.

"Smile dear." Neytiri prompted as she flashed her teeth, eyelashes fluttering.

"I'm clearly a washed up divorcee." John retorted cynically, grabbing her glass of champagne and downing it in a single swallow. Neytiri let out an appalled gasp. Or maybe it was something else. He countered with a short burp. Setting the glass down he said, "I can do whatever the hell I like."

.

Since their cover was a newly transplanted, ambiguously gay duo, they tried their hand at farming at their place. Tried being the operative word. It was too late in the season to plant favorites like tomatoes or artichoke, but they'd received suggestions for green stuff like lettuce and radishes, things with short growing periods that could be eaten at any time. But after hours of backbreaking labor, all John had to show for it was a half-tilled garden and the knowledge that enhanced healing did not make blisters any easier to bear.

Then there was the fact that Sylar was sampling their future crop like it was popcorn.

"I think we're supposed to plant those." John pointed out.

"What, you're not sure?" Sylar asked contemplatively. He shooed away his chicken, or its alien equivalent, as he sat down, looking humble yet roguishly handsome with top two buttons undone and his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. John swallowed, watching.

"I'm a marine, not a plow horse."

"Yes" Sylar rolled his eyes. "So you've said, many, many times."

"It's because you weren't listening the first five hundred times."

The shapeshifter cocked his head. "For once, I don't think it's your fault."

"Somethin' wrong?"

"Whispers mostly." Sylar answered. "It seems that our neighbors are having just as much luck as we are."

.

"Crops are failing, they're rotting from inside out and no one can figure out why. They think it might be the damp or bugs. Which means that they know shit." John snarled, punctuating his sentences with shots of watered-down bourbon.

Food prices had jumped up to astronomical sums. People were starting to hoard food. No more were there extravagant parties held at Kodos' estate. They were at Neytiri's house, tiny but prettily furnished.

"What has Kodos been saying about all this?"

"Nothing" came a third voice in the shape of Nathan Grey. He sided up to them, draping a casual arm around Neytiri's waist in a purely proprietary gesture. Though much shorter than John, Sylar exuded presence in his stolen body. He could feel his cheeks pinken slightly and was glad that he had not bothered to shave. "He's said nothing."

John poured out the liquor in each empty cup.

"I don't like the feel of this."

"No" Neytiri agreed, fingers circling the rim of her glass.

Voice low, he asked, "Anything on your end?"

She closed her eyes for a moment as though deep in thought, her fingers winding faster and faster until with a slight stutter in her breath, she knocked the glass over, spilling the amber liquid over the marble counters.

With a short curse, he and Sylar held her up as she kicked off her heels, bare toes sinking deep into the lush carpet like she was trying to take root deep down to the foundations. "I cannot hear her." She said bluntly. "I can no longer hear Tarsus IV."

.

"Get up, get up, get up!"

"Bwuh"

Despite his lack of articulation, he was immediately awake at Sylar's assault.

"What's happening?" He mumbled, effortlessly grabbing the armor and the phaser the other man threw at him.

Nathan Grey stood in the doorway, wet curls sweeping across his forehead. His shirt was wet, practically see through and he was wearing the wrong pants. John scowled at the mismanagement of resources as his helmet closed around his head with a quiet hiss.

"It's on." Sylar said grimly, his hand a vice grip on his shoulder. "Kodos just gave the kill order."

.

"Get back."

"We're here to help."

Sylar put on his most winning smile which meant that he lost all credibility as a human being. Kirk cocked his rifle, a finger curved around the trigger like he meant it, dead-eyed and frighteningly young but determined, ready to do what was necessary.

The kid's aunt and uncle were dead, nearly all adults were in this sector, they had been too late. But somehow, Kodos' men had missed Kirk and several other children who swarmed around their chosen leader like ducklings shivering in the wet grass. Maybe someone had a moment of compassion. It happened, sometimes. It usually got them killed.

John turned to Sylar.

"His wife?!"

"I had to stay in character." Sylar protested, feigning injury. "It was a good way to keep track of Kodos."

Kirk glared.

"I said, get back."

A little girl whimpered and John raised his hands in surrender.

"It's okay, we're the good guys."

The teen let out a shaky laughter.

"What? Like the ones who murdered my aunt and uncle? And my cousins?" Kirk's voice broke. "Amy was four!"

"Our condolences," Sylar said soothingly, "but it's not safe here."

A bullet whistled past his head, grazing the helmet with the smell of burnt polymer. Pale, Kirk stumbled at the recoil but took careful aim with his trembling hands.

"The next one doesn't miss."

It was raining. What Kirk had just realized was that guns were frighteningly loud. Anyone could have heard his warning shot, some from even miles away. Somebody would notice that not all members of the agricultural sector were dead.

Time was running out.

"For the love of—" John ripped his helmet off, tossing it down by his feet. "There, happy?"

Sylar sucked in a sharp breath. Kirk didn't look any better. His aim wavered.

"Coop... Bones?"

"Bones?" Sylar asked.

John ignored him.

"Yeah kid, 's me."

"What the hell are you doing here? Fuck, you've been following me?"

"Language" He growled. "There's no time for that, we've got to go."

"_Shit_" Kirk disagreed, stricken.

John raised his hands placatingly. "Kid, you kill me, you'll never find your daddy's ring."

"How did you know?" The teen demanded.

"Infant, most of us grew up knowing how to read."

Sylar hissed beneath his breath, urging him to wrap it up. John stomped on his feet.

The rifle's muzzle swung downwards.

"But... you loved being a cop."

"I did" he acknowledged and found it to be true. After gallivanting across the universe, Riverside was something of a huge let down. But it didn't mean that helping old ladies carry their groceries or breaking up parties at ten pm were beneath him. "But I had more important things to do."

"So what now?" The kid asked brokenly and John knelt, took the rifle from his hand and smiled at the scared little faces gathered in front of him.

"Now? We run. We play it safe and we'll make Kodos pay for what he did."

.

For a week, they ran rings around the patrol using what little ammo and batteries they had to thin the ranks. From downed men they found nutrition bars, shitty but something after being on rations for so long and it kept your stomach full for up to twelve hours. But they soon disappeared as Kodos grew wise to their act.

That's when they started stealing, sneaking down to the surviving half of the colony that hadn't been decimated by the genocide, making off with whatever they could. They found it easier to work in broad daylight while everyone was out and the guards dozed, exhausted from their night in the woods. They were practically Robin Hood to Kodos' King Richard.

It couldn't last forever. In fact, it didn't.

He blinked at the sight.

"Gab..." He let out a short curse. "Nathan, goddammit, wake up!"

"'s too early." Sylar yawned, stretching like an oversized cat.

John grabbed his sleeve and pulled him outside the small lean-to they built using scrap metal and parts he was sure no one missed. Cold wind was blowing in, bringing with it flecks of tiny, ice crystals tainted violet by the strange atmospheric content. One landed on his forehead and quickly melted away.

"Look"

Snow was falling. Winter had come.


End file.
